The present invention relates to a fitting piece structure of a main body of a portable terminal appliance, such as a portable phone, in particular it relates to a configuration provided with a twisted surface in a part of a fitting surface of a fitting piece for improving the disassembling property of a main body case.
Recently, manufacturers of portable terminal appliances, such as portable phones are actively striving for the new product development for achieving a smaller size, a lightweight and a thinner shape. According to the trend, the mechanical strength of the product tends to be weak due to a thinner shape of the housing and deterioration of the rigidity of the main body. Moreover, since the number of repair of the troubled products on market increases according to the increase of the spread ratio with respect to the population year by year so as to increase the number of terminals, improvement of the disassembling property and maintenance property of the terminals is called for.
Hereinafter, a conventional fitting piece structure of a main body of a portable terminal device, such as a portable phone will be explained hereinafter.
The conventional fitting piece structure of the main body of the portable phone will be described with reference to FIGS. 1, 7A, 7B, 10 and 11. In FIG. 1, thee portable phone comprises an upper case 1, a lower case 2 and an internal unit 30. For engagement of the upper case 1 and the lower case 2, a fitting piece 3 as shown in FIG. 7B is used. In the case of the engagement using the fitting piece 3, a fitting horizontal surface 4 having vertices U-V-X-Y is formed as shown in FIGS. 10 and 11.
Operation of the portable terminal device with the configuration will be explained. The upper case 1 and the lower case 2 are engaged with the internal unit 30 inserted therebetween. At the time, the upper case 1 and the lower case 2 are held and fixed by fitting the fitting pieces, 3 of the upper case 1 and the lower case 2 with respect to the fitting horizontal surface 4 of the corresponding fitting piece 3.
Operation in disassembling for repair will be explained. The upper case 1 and the lower case 2 held by the fitting piece 3 shown in FIG. 7B are divided against to the fitting force of the fitting piece 3. The operation force characteristic at the time of the release is shown in FIG. 7A. That is, since the cases cannot be disassembled until a certain load is applied but there is a risk of damage or breakage if the cases are disassembled forcibly, they need to be disassembled by handling with care for gradually releasing the fitting between each fitting piece 3 and the corresponding fitting piece 3 in the upper case 1 and the lower case 2 for preventing damage or breakage.
Accordingly, since the fitting pieces cannot be released easily at the time of disassembling although the upper and lower cases are held preferably by the fitting pieces of the main body in the conventional configuration, a problem is involved in that damage or breakage of the main body case can easily be generated due to a bend or twist mode at the time of disassembling a product on market.